Method of



H RANKIN.

Water Wheel.

Patented July 11; 1854.

UNITED STATES raTnnT orrrcn.

DAVID RANKIN, or AUGUSTA COUNTY} VIRGINIA.

METHOD OF APPLYING WATER TO CUNEIFORM BUCKETS FLUTTER-WI-IEELS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 11,255, dated July 11, 1854; Reissued September To all whom it may concern: I

Be it known that I, DAVID RANKIN, of Augusta county, in the State-of Virginia, have invented certain new and useful Im provements in the Construction and Arrangement of Chutes. and Flutter Waterl/Vheels; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the same, reference being hadfto the accompanying drawings, making a part thereof, and which represent a side view of the flutter-wheel and a section through the forebay.

The nature of my invention relates to the cuneiform shape of the floats or buckets and their arrangement with regard to an eccentric water-way or chute board, so that the water shall act on at least three buckets, in the proportions of about thirty-three per cent. on the first, sixty-six on the second, and thirty-three on the third or last bucket, which should but barely escape the bottom of the chute board, at the point where the power of the Water is exhausted.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my invention, I will proceed to describe the same with reference to the drawings.

S, is the shaft of the wheel, which may be of Wood or iron orboth, as may be found essential, and which is provided with any suitable number of radial arms, for carrying the floats or buckets F, F, &c.

The floats or buckets F, are cuneiform or Wedge-shaped, and so let into the ends of the arms, that their inclined sides which receive the water shall stand as nearly at right angles to the column of descending water as can be safely done, and prevent the water from running to the center of the wheel.

In the general construction of flutter Wheels and their chutes, heretofore, the forebay overhung the wheel, and the Water-way was concentric with the wheel. In this mode of construction, the bucket on the horizontal arm closed up the water-way, and destroyed the bucket will represent its posit-ion on the arm and how they are set thereon.

P, represents the forebay or penstock and B the breast board. The point f, of the breast board project-s slightly below the bottom of the penstock, c, 9, representing the line of said bottom. The chute board may be perpendicular from c to (Z, but from (Z, to its extreme end it curves around eccentrically in relation to the wheel until at a point about perpendicular from the center of the wheel the last float or bucket acting, shall just escape it in passing.

The proportions of the wheel generally, and of the chute, may be varied to suit the head and fall of water, the rules for which are laid down in the elementary books on this subject, and need not here be repeated.

Having thus fully described the nature of my invention I would state that I do not claim a wedge shaped bucket, or an eccentric water-way, when used separately; but

What I do claim therein as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

So arranging cuneiform buckets upon the radial arms of flutter wheels, that in passing through an eccentrically formedwater-way, three buckets shall receive the volume of water in about the proportions herein de- W'M. H. HARMAN, HUGH WV. SHEFFEY.

[FIRST PRINTED 1913.] 

